Navigate:

Text Size

-

+

reset

Obama beat Clinton among men and nearly tied her among women, winning in every income bracket, and among white voters and black.
AP Photo

Senator Barack Obama picked up steam with ninth straight victory in Wisconsin, beating Senator Hillary Clinton in a state where she had no clear excuse for defeat, and leaving her no leeway at all for further major losses.

His win sets the stage for showdowns in Texas and Ohio on March 4, two states Clinton's supporters acknowledge she must win.

The timing of the two candidates' evening speeches indicated that both are readying for a bruising two weeks. In a small breakdown of political etiquette, Clinton stepped to the podium in Youngstown, Ohio, soon after polls closed in Wisconsin, to open what her campaign billed as a major new front against Obama. And Obama began his own speech in the middle of hers, causing cable networks to interrupt her talk and cut to his.

"The American people have spoken out and they are saying we need to move in a new direction," he told an overflow crowd at the 18,500 seat Toyota Center in Houston. "We have a unique moment that we have to seize."

Clinton's speech broke little new ground after a month of largely ineffective attacks on her rival.

She said she would be "a president who relies not just on words but on work." And she questioned Obama's readiness to lead the American military.

"One of us is ready to be commander in chief in a dangerous world," she said.

Those have been the themes of Clinton's steady assault since her defeat last month in Iowa jarred her onto offense. But she also launched a new attack on Obama in the days before her Wisconsin defeat: Her chief spokesman, Howard Wolfson, charged Obama with "plagiarism" for using whole phrases from a political ally, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

"Both Deval Patrick and Senator Obama have the same consultant and adviser, who is apparently putting words in both of their mouths," she said, referring to consultant David Axelrod in an interview with the Honolulu CBS affiliate. "And I think that's a serious question to be raised because, obviously, we're asking the people of Hawaii to hire us for the toughest job in the world."

Her campaign's focus on the question was an attempt to attack Obama on what is perhaps his greatest strength - a perception of authenticity and freshness that has eluded Clinton.

Obama's aides said they viewed the Wisconsin win as a specific rejection of Clinton's attacks.

Axelrod called Obama's strength among late-deciding voters "a repudiation of the negative campaign we saw in Wisconsin."

Clinton's campaign, however, is unlikely to back down. She needs to stop Obama's momentum now, and Wolfson rejected Axelrod's contention.

"They predicted they would win two weeks ago," he said. "They did. On to Ohio and Texas."

The results in Wisconsin, like those in Virginia, suggest that the next two states are an uncertain firewall for Clinton. Wisconsin has only half the African-American population of Ohio, and shares some of its characteristics, with a large white working class, and broad disenchantment with trade and globalization.

And Obama won a broad mandate in Wisconsin, according to exit polls.

He won among every age group of voters, except those over 60. He tied Clinton among voters who had only a high school education. He beat her among men and nearly tied her among women, winning in every income bracket, and among white voters and black.

It was African-Americans who, again, widened his margin by giving him the vast bulk of their support. He won 90 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls, which found that African-Americans made up 8 percent of primary voters - up from 6 percent in the 2004 presidential primaries. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that some polling places in that city ran out of ballots because of unexpectedly high turnout.

Obama's frontrunner status was solidified in the moments after polls closed when John McCain, declared the Republican victor, attacked him as "inexperienced" and his words as "empty" — without even mentioning Clinton. And after Obama interrupted Clinton's speech - which mixed attacks on Obama's allegedly empty rhetoric with her own policy proposals - he gave a comfortable, loose, and policy-heavy speech of his own, breaking little ground and running an unusually long time, about 45 minutes.

Before beginning I would like to say that I do respect the consrevatives and moderates that actually have substantive comments to discuss, however, all the ignorant, conservative war mongers that fear anything slightly different than themselves need to get a life and stop criticizing candidates on stupid irrelevant rumors, that not only illustrate the level of education they may lack. These people need to be aware that they show unsubstantiated hatred towards other cultures and religions, which should speak of the character they hold and the morals and religious teachings they may carry. Prejudice and hatred will only drive America back domestically, further destroy its foreign relations, and breed the hatred needed to fuel terrorism. So if this is all these conservatives can analyze when going to decide which candidate to vote for, or when the only way they can criticize someone is through their ethnic/religious background (untrue as they maybe), they are much better off not voting and not voicing these unreasonable comments. Criticizing a candidate for his/her policies is one thing, but making false personal attacks that have no foundation are just irrelevant. Wasn't this "we're right, your wrong" ethnocentric attitude that gave birth to many of the domestic and foreign problems we face today? And by the way Islam is based of Christianity and Judiasm, and therefore shares many of their aspects.

I can see Clinton going on to Texas and Ohio and she definitely should. If the result is more of the same, Sen Clinton should just bow out gracefully while she still can. If Obama beats her on March 4th primaries and she still trys to go on in this race, she will only disgrace herself and the Democratic Party.

Can anybody say "sore loser"?? HRC sure can! From CNN: WASHINGTON (CNN) ? Three times may make a trend: for the third primary/caucus night in a row, Hillary Clinton has taken the stage at a post-election rally and failed to mention her losses, or congratulate her winning opponent, Barack Obama.

I can see Clinton going on to Texas and Ohio and she definitely should. If the result is more of the same, Sen Clinton should just bow out gracefully while she still can. If Obama beats her on March 4th primaries and she still trys to go on in this race, she will only disgrace herself and the Democratic Party.

YEAH HONESTLY, IF I WERE HER, I LOOKED AT THE NUMBERS AND ITS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE. HES CATCHING UP IN OHIO TO AND WILL PROBABLY WIN TEXAS. IF I WERE HERE I WOULD CONCEDE WITH SOME DIGNITY AND GO BACK TO THE NEW YORK SENATE AND WORK WITH OBAMA TO GET MCCAIN. THE THING IS WILL SHE REALLY DO SOMETHING OF CLASS? UMMMMMM I DOUBT THAT.

Obama speech was 44 minutes long spoken from memory and he not using a telepromter and or notes. Obama seemed wired to every word that came out of his mouth as he inspired and delivered his message to 20,000 people. McCain speech was read from a telepromter and many times he stumbled and had to re read his lines to a seemingly subdued polite crowd of a few admirers and he was speaking in long hyphenated sentences that only a political science teacher could understand. I mean McCain is sounding and looking more like Bob Dole. I suppose the question is "Can McCain inspire the Republicans to come out and vote in November." Today in Wisconsin some one million Democrat voters came out to vote while only some 300,000 Republicans showed up to vote. What will November look like?

Bottom line. Hillary was a great candidate .... Until an alternative was offered. Too bad she had to carry all that pompous, boorish baggae called Bill with her. As a Republican i have a new respect for her determination and ability to withstand this defeat. But the Bill Clinton is the biggest jerk to ever hit the political scene, so full of ego its sickeneing! When this is all over he will be the biggest loser!

Hillary lossed by a landslide in Wisconsin tonight. Let's see...91% in and Obama is up 17, I said...17 points.

Whoa momma! Stop the presses for Obama! "Hillaryland" is FINISHED. It's over folks. But, hopefully the Clintons will stay true to form, take off the gloves, and make this really ugly. They'll do McCain's job for him, and they're gonna get beat anyway. A movement is afoot in America.

The Republicans better hitch up their britches. They can beat Obama on the issues, with the possible exception of health care (which is a big one and if McCain was smart he'd start revising his approach with an emphasis on going after the crooked, gouging, health insurance companies). However, at this point in time it seems that most of America doesn't even care about "issues". America is falling in love with Mr. Obama. That by itself is a very dangerous thing to Republicans.

I see the rabid anti-Hillary folk got in here first. Ah, well. Obama was predicted to win. However, Hillary's loss in Wisconsin was great enough to continue Obama's momentum. She's in trouble and needs to win TX and OH. OH still looks very good for her, but TX is a problem with it's complicated delegate apportionment. Hillary would need to win there by 10 points to win the most delegates. Recent polls suggest it will be closer--and will probably tighten further by 4 March. STILL, it's not over and even if Hillary loses all the remaining states, Obama won't likely have a majority of delegates for a automatic win. It is probably certain that party elders will get Obama and Hillary in a room together to come to terms well before the convention. The developing bitterness between the camps endangers our general election prospects and needs to be mitigated--fast.

Wow ben, I never saw it before but its clear you are a Hillary supporter. I'm not knocking or attacking you for that, you're just a little transparent about it. As a side note, shouldn't the headline say "beatdown" instead of "showdown"?

What a stupid, stupid strategy from Hillary and McCain. Why would anyone attack Obama on his speeches for lack of policy content? This was the candidate that got chewed out in early debates for *being* a policy wonk and spending too much time on policy. As he showed tonight, he's perfectly happily to deliver policy-heavy speeches if that's needed. I found it deeply ironic that Hillary's ignored speech in Ohio continued to attack Obama on his "empty rhetoric," while the media groaned over the 45-minute rally in Houston. Apparently Hillary still thinks she can win the nomination by the old-fashioned strategy of just making crap up-- she's in for some nasty surprises on March 4th.

ETA: Contrary to above, I really do not think there is going to be a Democratic party rift if Obama wins the nomination. I have seen no indication whatsoever that the "rather McCain than Obama" crowd consists of more than a few internet harpies. When Obama takes the nomination, he will take the support of the full Democratic party with him.

Yay!! For the first time in my adult life I'm also finally proud to be an American!!!

The Democrat Convention is going to be such a brawl! Even better than WWF. I'm going to have plenty of cold beer and popcorn ready to watch the riot on the convention floor.

BTW "Crat3", no need to put yourself on a suicide watch just yet. Relax! McCaine doesn't stand a chance in the general election and will lose to either Clinton or Obama. Republicans aren't going to show up at the polls in November.

In a couple of weeks the pundits who have been saying Clinton can still win if only [fill in blank], will be talking about how SC was her Waterloo. May the Clintons go crawl under a rock somewhere for a couple of decades. Perhaps by then my memory will be a bit fuzzy. And may our next female candidate for president be someone who got there on something other than her spousal relationship.